POOR LAWS.

HC Deb 10 July 1822 vol 7 cc1560-96

Mr. Nolan

addressed the House to the effect following:^*

Mr. Speaker; in bringing forward a measure for amending those laws which peculiarly respect the Poor, I beg to assure the House, that no one feels the complicated ^* From the original edition, printed for J. Butterworth. difficulties of the undertaking more than I do. Any attempt which is to interfere with the habits, the manners, and daily subsistence of the most helpless and improvident of our fellow subjects, requires, no ordinary carefulness and caution. It has to embrace in one comprehensive system of provision and regulation the most numerous and least tractable, because the least informed, classes of society. It must labour to reconcile and provide for the diversified, and in many respects conflicting, interests of districts, not less separated from each other by difference of manners than by distance: not more distinguishable by their sources of industry, than by their local peculiarities. It must struggle to unite such measures as are indispensable for the general safety with those which are urged by humanity, for the protection of the forlorn and the destitute.

Sir, when I reflect upon these and many other difficulties which surround the task I have taken upon myself, I must acknowledge that I almost repent me of my own temerity. That feeling presses more deeply on my mind, when I consider the many great and distinguished persons who have taken up the subject with much original ardour, and have finally relinquished it; often without attempting any thing, and rarely having effected much for the cure of mischiefs, which it is much more easy to discover, than to devise any safe and practicable remedy to remove.—But, however painful, laborious, difficult, or ungracious the task may be, the time is come when the House must resolve to encounter this most important subject, and grapple with all its intricacies and perplexities. That the poor-laws, as they are now administered, operate injuriously and oppressively to the best and most immediate interests of the country, none will deny, with whom it would not be a waste of time to dispute. The petitions on your table, and what I may call the universal cry of the public, proclaim the mischief and demand a remedy. If doubts lurk in any rational mind upon this point, a reference to the useful labours and painful researches of the different committees of this House upon the subject of the poor-laws, and the various returns made under the orders of this House, must dispel and remove them. With your leave, Sir, and that of the House, I will shortly refer to a few of those facts which bear more immediately upon the subject. It appears by the population returns laid upon your table this session, that the population of Great Britain and Ireland, exclusive of the islands in the British seas, amounted, in the year 1821, to 21,236,636; that of England and Scotland being 14,379,677, that of Ireland no less than 6,846,942; that the increase of population in England, between that time and the census taken in 1811, is 18 per cent, that the surplus upon the census of 1801, is 32½ per cent; and that the mesne increase of England, Wales and Scotland, between 1801 and 1821, a period of no more than 20 years, has been no less than 31⅔ per cent. The late returns of Irish population refer to the census of 1813, as the first regular return on the subject, so that the increase cannot be so accurately estimated; but supplying the deficiencies in the last return by reasonable inference from the earlier documents, the population of that country appears to have augmented in rather a more accelerated ratio than that of either Scotland, Wales, or England. That some, and perhaps a considerable portion, of this great apparent increase arises from the inaccuracies of the former census, I believe to be the fact; but making every reasonable allowance and deduction upon this account, it is manifest that the general population of the United Kingdom has much augmented. It is to be observed, that this increase is by no means fluctuating or occasional. It is not to be referred to any local or temporary cause: our numbers have swelled in a steady and uniformly accelerating ratio in every county and city that has made returns, and that without such an influence from the poor rates as some of our most ingenious theorists have not irrationally conjectured to be necessary for producing it. I draw this inference from the facts, that the population of Scotland, where the relief afforded the poor is very limited, has augmented in a ratio of only two and a seventh per cent less than England, where the numbers have so enormously multiplied; while that of Ireland, where the poor-laws are altogether unknown, exceeds that of either in its proportionate increase.

If the demand for labour has increased in the same proportion with the increase of population in England and Wales, it is the most decisive proof of our accumulating prosperity and power. If, on the other hand, the number of hands exceeds the natural demand for labour, the surplus labourers with their families are reduced to idle consumers, and become a heavy drain upon the capital of this country through the means of her poor-rates. Neither, when we are considering the balance between the quantum of labour, and the demand for it with reference to the poor-rates, should the increase of labourers in Scotland and Ireland be struck from the account. The unemployed surplus, and often more than that surplus, will naturally migrate from these poorer countries, where there is no protection against want by poor-rates, into England, where the prices of labour, and particularly of the coarser kinds are higher than home. If a superabundance of labour exists here, such an influx must increase it. If the number of competitors exceeds the natural demand for their labour, and thereby depresses its price beyond the true value, that depression compels the English labourer to have recourse to the poor-rates, and thus the emigrant Irish or Scotsman indirectly augments those funds, from which, as the law now stands, he can derive no support.

Sir, I have hazarded these remarks because the rise in our rates is attributed by some to this increased population. The observations are not to be overlooked in considering this subject. But whether correctly applicable or otherwise, we may turn from them to the more directly conclusive facts, that the poor-rates between 1750 and 1821 have increased in the proportion of above ten to one. That the number of persons receiving relief in the year 1818, either as permanent or occasional paupers, as calculated upon the census of 1811, was no less than 9¾ in every hundred, or nearly one in every ten of the entire population; and that the aggregate amount of our annual poor-rates in 1821, as well as those of the immediately preceding years, were almost one-seventh of the total annual income arising from the landed revenue, calculated upon the return made in 1815: a return which is much higher than any that could now be made under the existing circumstances of agricultural depression and distress^*. ^* The average amount of the money raised and expended for the use of the poor in 1750, was 689,971l.; in 1816–17, 6,918,217l.; in 1817–18, 7,890,148l.; being an increase beyond the preceding year of 971,931l. This was the highest It is impossible to, look upon a mischief spreading thus widely, uniformly, and irresistibly, without a degree of terror bordering on dismay. Its result, if not counteracted speedily and manfully, must reduce the entire country to the condition in which four Sussex parishes † have represented themselves in their recent return to be, a condition to which I fear some other parishes seem fast approaching. For if the poor-rate swallow up the entire profits of the lands, they will be rendered not, worth cultivation, as yielding neither gain to the landlord, nor advantage to his tenant. A crisis the more to be apprehended, because every diminution of the occupier's profit reduces his ability to employ the labouring poor, and thus creates an additional necessity for an increased rate upon whatever little remains.

That some remedy must be applied to averting the impending calamity seems uni- annual amount of the poor-rates yet known. Since then they have gradually declined as follows:

1818–19,	£.7,531,650	an. decrease,	£.358,498
1819–20,	7,329,594	an. decrease,	202,056
1820–21,	6,958,445	an. decrease,	371,149
Total decrease in last three years,	931,703

But the average increase of the poor-rates calculating upon each three years from March 1812, to March 1821, is

March 1812 to March 1815,	£.6,129,844
March 1815 to March 1818,	6,844,290
Increase from 1815 to 1818	714,446
1818 from 1821,	7,273,229
Increase from 1818 to 1821	428,939

The entire of these reports, by the committees on this subject, are worthy of the general attention. It is to be hoped that they will be continued annually, and upon enlarged principles of inquiry. † See the return of the poor-rates and population in these parishes. Northiam, near half the population paupers, rates at 1l. 11s. 6d. in the pound. Salehurst, half the population paupers, rates 16s. 9d. in the pound. Dewash, more than half the population paupers, rates 11s. 2d. in the pound. May-field, half population paupers, rates 14s. in the pound. Not having the means of inquiry, I can only suspect that some, and possibly a considerable part of these enormous rates arises from the mischievous practice, of paying some portion of the labourer's wages with part of the rates. versally agreed. Some persons, and they are not a few, seeing nothing in the system but its mischief, and disgusted with its practical and pressing evils, propose to eradicate altogether that code laws, which has, for between two and three centuries, regulated the support of the poor, and to sweep away, either immediately or at no very remote period, the laws of parochial, removal, settlements, and poor-rates. Sir, I must avow that I want courage to adopt such a bold, violent, and precipitous measure; to me it would afford the most strong and serious grounds for alarm. It is seldom wise or statesmanlike to root out at once laws, however originally misconceived, which have become identified with the habits and manners of the country. A system under which nearly two millions of the people of England have been lodged and clothed and fed, must not at one single pull be so unceremoniously overturned. Little less than eight millions of money are divided annually, among the people, their wives, and their children, from the poor-rates. To pluck such large means of subsistence, as it were, from the very mouths of the poor without affording them ample time for supplying it from other resources, would be cruel, if it were safe; and would be most unwise, as it would be most dangerous—I say most dangerous, as it must arouse the strongest feelings of nature against our civil tranquillity, and give to popular commotion the colour of necessary resistance against wanton oppression. These reasons would deter me from such schemes and efforts, if I were satisfied that these laws had been mischievous in their original institution, and repugnant to the sound principles of civil economy.

But, upon the best consideration I can give the question, and I do not speak without having reflected much upon it, I must say, that the poor-laws, when administered in their original spirit, appeal to me more likely to produce benefit than disadvantage to the people. There is little doubt, that the artificers, peasants and all the lower classes of this country have increased more rapidly in mechanical skill, in useful knowledge, and also in the comforts and decencies of social life, that those of any other country in civilized Europe. The peasantry of all European nations may be considered as having made their start together towards civil improvement and importance somewhat more early than the reign of our Elizabeth. If there existed, any perceptible distinction in their respective conditions in different states, those of England could not boast, the advantage of any relative pre-eminence. Yet, in this race of civil refinement, they have ultimately outstripped all their rivals. The connexion of this effect with the existence of the poor-laws appears more striking by comparing the condition of humble life in England with that which, obtains in Scotland and in Ireland. They all live under the same constitutional law—receive the, influence of the same governing system—enjoy the same freedom, and may, boast, that the upper ranks of life in all assimilate as much as possible to each other in knowledge, manners, ants, and civilization. Yet the general condition of the English labourer excels that of the Scotch, where these laws, are adopted under a very limited modification, and far outstrips that of the Irish, where they are wholly unknown.

Sir, I am far fro wishing to push this conclusion beyond its fair limits. Much less do I entertain the idle conjecture, that the present distressed and degraded state of Ireland is altogether, owing to the want of poor laws. To that most melancholy effect many complicated, causes, which may be traced to a remote date, undoubtedly co-operate. But there are some calamities which have recently fallen on that fine country which a moderate, poor-rate might have averted. In 1816 the potatoe crop failed, and the people must have starved if the government had not stepped forward to succour them. In the present year, the same misfortune occurred, and the failure of one single kind of food would have brought down, famine and pestilence on the people, in the midst of abundance of every other article of consumption, if they had not been averted (if they are averted), by the noble and generous efforts of the people of this country, aided by no inconsiderable exertions of their own gentry, and by a prudent and cautious assistance from, his majesty's government. If some provision must be made against such occasional visitations, I prefer that of a moderate, parochial rate, to one which, is to be furnished by the king's government. If any thing like general recourse should be had to that indiscriminating mode of showering down relief, I know of no prudence that could place either fine or period to its progress: there would be neither means of control, nor motives for economy. The re-action which takes place in this country, and causes a demand for labour from an effort to avoid the increase of poor-rates, could not exist, and there would be no end to application until the fund that was to supply, the cravings of the people was totally consumed. I do not offer these remarks as wishing to introduce this system into Ireland in the present state of society, but to demonstrate the policy and expediency of continuing it in this country where it has so long existed^*. Founded upon these reasons, and others with which it would be inconvenient to exhaust the House's patience, my design is, not to destroy the existing system for relieving the poor, but to restore and bring it back, so far as the existing grades and habits of society will admit, to the true spirit of the statute passed in the 43rd year of the reign of queen Elizabeth.

Previous to pointing out the means by which I propose to effect this object, it may not be improper to draw the attention of the House to the more prominent and ^* The foundation of the system for occasionally sustaining the laborious classes by poor-rates seems referable to the following principles. The price of labour must always constitute the chief source of the labourer's support. As far as that price depends upon actual value, it must be regulated by the demand, and what the employer can afford to give, looking to a beneficial return for it. But, the labourer must also take into consideration how far the price of labour is sufficient to purchase subsistence for himself and his family. These from necessary causes, must ultimately find their level, and balance each other. But occasional fluctuations from accidental causes, such as a fall in foreign markets, failure of crops, &c. must occasionally occur. The price of labour will always fall immediately with the decline of the employer's profit; but although it must ultimately rise with it, the rise is not equally prompt. For times of occasional dearth and disability, the labourer ought in strictness to provide, by saving from his surplus earnings in more abundant seasons; but, unfortunately, the labourer is seldom a saver, and is no good husbander of superabundant means. It is against these occasional periods and fits of distress that the poor fund seems intended to provide, and constitutes a useful provision. general causes to which the progressive increase of these rates is attributed; to explain the law as it originally stood under the act of Elizabeth; and specify the leading efforts which have been made by the legislature to amend or alter it. Upon this last subject, the House will not fail to remark, that our ancestors, faithful to the genius and spirit of our legislation in this as in every other instance, have uniformly endeavoured rather to amend and improve, than to repeal and destroy, the original enactments.—Of most of these causes of our increasing rates, it is merely my purpose to bring them before the House for its consideration, rather than to comment upon their operation and. extent. Some of them are of a nature altogether occasional: such are those which originated in the want of employment of the manufacturing classes at the termination of the war, and which are now fortunately at an end; and that arising from the melancholy extent of our agricultural distress, which still continues to exhaust and oppress the country. With these is to be classed an evil deeply felt in some districts, as the resulting consequence from both the former; I mean the great number of removals of persons who became chargeable to a certain extent, from their inability to procure a sufficiency of work or wages to maintain them and their families, and who were on that account removed back to their places of settlement, where they could procure neither. For occasional demands upon the charity and capital of the country, from causes like these, against which the poor have not means nor foresight to provide, there does not seem any reasonable prospect of devising an efficient remedy. With them may be ranked one more permanent, but likewise local and peculiar, I mean that over breeding, if I may so speak, for particular callings and trades, which is the usual consequence of a relative excess of wages in different manufactures, and of that natural predilection which parents feel to educate their children to the business in which they have themselves been trained up. Unless the demand for the manufactured article increases with the increase of manufacturers, all must abate in wages, and some be kept out of employment. The evil is nourished by the inherent ambition of all ranks in the advanced stages of social refinement to push themselves upwards; and it unfortunately happens, that those bitter lessons of inconvenience which ultimately work the cure of each individual excess, operate too slowly and remotely to prevent its recurrence in other casts of employment and pursuits of life. To a certain extent, therefore, we must always calculate that this cause of distress will be locally and partially felt.—A more extensive, and infinitely more alarming one, if it really exists, is that to which I have already called the House's attention; namely, a general excess in the quantity of labour beyond the demand for it, owing to an excessive increase of our population. If this evil does gain ground upon us, it is beyond the reach of redress from any alteration in our system of maintaining the poor; neither the spade husbandry, nor parish farms, nor any other palliatives, of ancient or modern device, will do. The only effectual remedy will be found in the encouragement of some system of colonization, a subject to which I shall hereafter refer.

But, Sir, it appears to me, that the true cause of our malady lies chiefly in the mal-administration of the poor-laws; which, from being originally wise and useful, have been recently perverted into an instrument the most pernicious and destructive to the independence of the lower classes of society, and thereby to the general prosperity of the country. That some causes must operate beyond the increasing wants of the poor and impotent to produce the increase of rates, seems demonstrable from the fact, that in their rise and fall they keep no corresponding pace with the existence or decline of those causes, with which the wants of the labouring classes are most obviously connected. They have augmented progressively since the year 1750, during the most flourishing periods of the empire, and with the general growth of our wealth, our commerce, and our manufactures. The price of corn and other provisions has affected this increase but little. The fluctuations in the demand for labour have produced occasional, but scarcely perceptible changes in the comparative scale. In all counties and in all districts, in England and in Wales, in the north and in the south; in all cities, towns and places, whether the population be agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial, the rates augment, and the demands of the poor accumulate. Although the nominal price of food and raiment has fallen by our return to a metallic currency—although the real value of every article of the first necessity has diminished by their abundance and plenteous increase—notwithstanding the restoration of employment to our manufacturers, the reanimation of our commerce, and the recent aid of a new and more prudent mode of administering the parish funds, the rates have not declined so much in the last three years as they increased in the single year from March, 1817, to March, 1818—a more striking and conclusive evidence that the evil originates from mismanagement, arises from the observation, that it has yielded to the activity, energy, and vigilance of public spirited parishioners, in those places where they have superintended the administration of the fund with a sober, temperate, and steady regard to economy. Some instances of the effect of this attention are to be found in the evidence reported by your committees; some have occurred within my own personal observation; and many more have been stated to me upon the most credible report.

Having thus detailed some of the causes of our present condition, I proceed to give a short account of the law, as it is to be traced in the statute books. The 43rd of Elizabeth projected the means of support for the impotent poor, and of educating the young; but it neither provided for, nor conceived, a general state of the labouring poor such as now exits. The churchwardens and three or four substantial householders annually appointed, were fully adequate to that species of parochial duty, assigned to them by the act. But those who made it, never contemplated that persons selected solely for their substance should become the daily task masters of the parish, and supply work and materials to all who, from laziness or indolence, or any other cause, were unable to procure the one or the other. In directing that the poor should be set at work, the act intended rather a measure of salutary police, than one of local general employment as a means of subsistence.

But, in whatever light that act is to be viewed, it is clear that its present uses have far outgrown the machinery devised or effecting its original purposes. Persons usually selected for overseers can neither spare time nor forethought from the urgent calls of their own affairs to superintend the domestic economy and supply the various wants, or check the unreasonable claims, of a large and active, and, in many instances, a cunning and vicious population. Hence their expen- ditures have necessarily been lavish and inconsiderate; their method of levying and collecting, the parish funds careless, irregular, and slovenly; and their manner of keeping their accounts, inaccurate and confused. A loss from neglecting their private affairs being individually felt, is carefully avoided; but the consequences of mismanaging the parish concerns are overlooked in the feeling that an injury is trifling which is shared, among many. Thus negligence and inattention do much mischief, but ignorance and inexperience produce more: almost before the overseer has acquired some insight into the duties of his office his year terminates, and he yields his place to a successor as raw and ignorant as he himself had been when originally appointed.

Neither, Sir, are the lavish and improvident squanderings of the parish property to be exclusively attributed to this local deficiency in its management. I regret to say, that the notions and principles commonly taken up and followed by magistrates, in making orders of relief, operate a much more wide and permanent mischief. The power of ordering relief vested in a single magistrate, residing near the dwelling of the poor man who requires it, is attended with much utility. It seems in theory to be impregnable to reasonable objection; yet in practice it has been attended with no small disadvantage. Its greatest and cardinal inconvenience is, that a single justice is unable to bear up against the clamour of his neighbours, and unwilling to hazard their good opinion by a steady rejection of a specious, but unwarranted application. One or two justices yield to the hardship of the individual case, instead of adhering to some universal, inflexible, steady principle, in administering the law of relief. They do not reflect, that it would be much more wise, and even more humane as a general rule of conduct, to make the particular case bend to the general law, than to force the general law to bend to the individual case.

Where indigence is entitled to extraordinary commiseration from peculiar hardship in its circumstances the sufferers may and ought to call for the gratifying exercise of private benevolence. But such instances furnish no sound apology for departing from those general rules which ought to govern the distribution of a common fund. It is in truth, at best, but an indulgence of private feelings at the public expense. The natural and necessary consequence of this practice has been, that the special circumstances which warped the judgment in making the original order are speedily forgotten, while the extent and nature of the relief is noted and remembered; and thus, that which in its origin constituted a humane exception, becomes registered as a governing rule, from which it is deemed unwise and scarcely safe to depart. These principles have caused much inconsiderate and injudicious interference with work-house relief and discipline, and, indeed, every species of parochial management. It was held to be the duty of parish officers to search out work for the pauper, who was thereby discharged from the obvious duty of procuring it for himself. Unless they were so fortunate as to obtain what he might be too lazy to seek for, he was to be adjudged entitled not merely to a sufficiency to sustain himself and his family, but to be placed in an equal, if not in a better situation, than the meritorious, considerate, and, I may add, high-minded labourer, who maintains himself and his family by the produce of his hard and honest labour. It was farther held by many, under an erroneous interpretation of the law, that this work must be found within the boundary of the individual's settlement. Although work could be obtained nearer to the poor man's dwelling, yet, if in another parish, it was thought from some reference to the statutes of Charles 2nd, that he could not be compelled to go to it, and must be supported, and amply supported, by his own. The inevitable effect of such indiscriminate and wild prodigality of relief has been; as it must be from the nature of man, and woman also; to remove and put away from the minds of the lower classes, those feelings and habits of sober, prudent, domestic economy and frugality, which peculiarly and honourably distinguished the wise and provident manners of their ancestors. That foresight with which heaven has blessed mankind to provide against the accidents of life, and the accustomed recurrence of distressful times and seasons, is dismissed as a useless and teasing quality by the pauper, to whom it is indifferent, whether he comes to the justice or the overseer, fuming from the ale-house, or fresh from a country excursion, or reeking in the effects of the most laborious toil, if, like a parish annuitant, he is entitled to demand and receive equal relief, without distinction or inquiry, whether his wants are owing to his vices or his misfortunes.

Sir, I appeal to the experience of all who hear me, whether this picture of putting the hand into our neighbours' pockets to relieve others, is overcharged in truth or colouring. That the public, and, as I trust, the great body of the magistracy, if not now, will soon be alive to the impolicy and illegality of this mode of administering relief, I hope and believe. Many have doubted, and not without grave authority to support their opinion, whether the distressed and impotent poor are entitled to any assistance from the public as a matter of common right. Lord Holt is reported to have said, when speaking of casual poor, that unless relieved by private charity, they must starve. Sir, to me this notion appears erroneous. The necessitous poor are entitled to some relief; but it is of the most stinted and penurious kind. According to the language of Horne's Mirror of Justices, which is the oldest authority, it is limited to such relief, as may prevent their dying from want of sustenance. Or, to use the language of an act of Henry 8th, to such as may prevent them begging from very necessity. But neither these laws, nor that of Elizabeth, nor any interpretation put upon them by our ancestors, ever considered or supposed, that the poor man, without work, was to live with his family a co-rival in comfort and respectability with the honest provident labourer who derived his support from his personal industry. I am happy to acknowledge, that the giving of relief through those improvident mistakes and errors to which I refer, originated from the most benevolent and excellent feelings and motives. But I have to do with their consequences, not with the motives from which they arise. The vice and danger of the age, and particularly of this country at this moment, is, that the most hazardous and unwise projects and practices are obtruded upon the public mind, graced with virtuous intentions, and recommended by honest but mistaken motives.

Sir, the result has been an increase of the poor to an unnatural, unwholesome, and ruinous extent. Scarcely less than one in every ten of our entire population are either permanent or occasional paupers. A poll-tax little short of 17s. per head is levied to sustain them. The sum wanted for the really necessitous poor, except in periods of national calamity, must always bear nearly the same ration to our population. Any fluctuation from temporary causes ought, as it depends upon them, to be commensurate with them. A decrease in the demand for labour, or a rise in the price of provisions should naturally produce a corresponding advance in the rates; and, on the other hand, a sudden and unusual demand for labour, and the cheapness of provisions, ought to cause a proportionate reduction. But the rise and fall in the rates seem never to have been materially affected by either class of causes. Since the year 1750 the price of labour, as well as of provisions, had undergone material variations both as to increase and diminution. But the poor-rates have been constantly progressing in an increasing ratio. The prices of labour, and of different kinds of labour, have differed much in different districts, and that without producing a corresponding alteration in the prices of food or clothing. Yet it appears by the returns on your table, that the applications for relief are nearly as numerous and as profuse, and certainly not less proportionably increasing in all. The manufacturer in a productive trade, whose wages are high, comes as boldly for relief, and receives it almost as readily, and not less abundantly, than the labourer whose wages in this period of agricultural distress are much too low.

Sir, although these evils and mischiefs have arrived to a crisis at this time, it is not to be denied, that they were felt and complained of, at much more early periods; even as far back, if not farther back, than the reign of Charles 2nd. I shall shortly detain the House by a brief reference to those measures enacted by our predecessors to avert those evils of which they partially felt the effect, without anticipating their full extent. The first general measure was passed in the reign of Charles 2nd. Its provisions were much extended in that of William 3rd, and enabled the poor to seek employment in other places than those of their settlement, by the means and under the protection of certificates of settlement. One object of the certificate was, to guard against the dangers of vagrancy, of which our ancestors felt a wise and politic dread. Another, and more immediate one, was, to allow the bearer to migrate with his family into another district, and to prevent his removal from thence, by an en- gagement, that the parish receiving him should be protected from any burthenous consequence incident to his residence there. The measure may be presumed to have had practically some, beneficial effect, as it was the object of legislative care, down to the 12th of Anne, c. 18. But the consequences of entailing families, as it were by record, upon parishes granting certificates, made parish officers reluctant to give them; and the provision of 35 Geo. 3rd c. 101, by preventing removal until the party becomes actually chargeable, rendered them unnecessary. The result of which is, that certificates have grown almost, if not entirely, out of use.

The next general measure was introduced by 9 Geo. 1. c. 7, which provided for the maintenance of the poor in work-houses, and imposed a wise restraint on the grant of relief by magistrates. Under that act no justice could order relief until application had been previously made either to the parishioners in vestry, or to two overseers. The provisions respecting work-houses still continue in force, and have undergone some subsequent statutory regulations. As it is not my purpose to intermeddle with them, I shall merely observe, that the mode of managing the poor by these means was materially affected by the discretionary power subsequently given to justices to order relief to the poor at their own homes without a right of appeal.

The next alteration was introduced by the 22nd Geo. 3rd c. 83, usually known by the name of Mr. Gilbert's act. It enabled parishes and other places to unite and incorporate for the purpose of jointly maintaining their poor. By this plan the relief and management of the poor was vested in a more compact and permanent body than the parish overseers created by the 43rd Elizabeth. It took away also, to a great extent, the right of interference and control which justices possessed by former laws over the relief and management of the poor. Of its practical effects with reference to any comparative diminution of expenditure, no documents are furnished which enable me to form any thing like a correct opinion. It may be rationally conjectured, that neither that act, nor any of the various local ones, have kept down the rates to the extent calculated by their respective projectors. For those provisions by which they were limited to a definite amount have all, some how or other, been got rid of. Of their comparative effects upon the manners, morals, and population of the districts subject to such peculiar regulations, I have also no certain means of judging. But as with the House's leave it is not my purpose to intermeddle with these local systems farther than to extend to them certain powers for employing the poor in common with other parishes, I sheik hazard no farther observation, than that they appear to carry the imperfections of the work-house plan to a more mischievous, because to a much wider extent.—Looking as I do upon the moral habits of the country to be the chief object of our guardianship and solicitude, I cannot view without much distrust and jealousy, institutions which bring together large bodies of people who have no common tie of union, except those of necessity and misfortune. The honest and the dissolute, the industrious and the idle, the young and the old, of either sex, are driven to shelter together in the same receptacle, with small means for their classification. Sir, I will not condemn such institutions, for I have no evidence to warrant me in so doing; but, sensible as I am that the example and contagion of vice are more prevalent than that of virtue, I can neither approve nor uphold them.

The next important alteration was introduced by the 35th Geo. 3rd c. 101, which prevented the removal of the poor until actually chargeable. The consequences of this enactment might give rise to much discussion; but I will content myself with making one observation, which refers to all these acts. That observation is, that in all times, and under all circumstances, the legislature has never thought either of repealing the 43rd of Elizabeth or the acts respecting removals; but has laboured to fortify the principle, and improve the administration of these laws, without destroying either.

I hasten now, Sir, to that valuable and important act passed in the 59th year of his late majesty. It was founded upon the patient, laborious, and indefatigable researches and inquiries of the committee, of which the right hon. member for Christ-church (Mr. S. Bourne) was chairman. Sir, if that gentleman had persevered in his, efforts on this subject, I should have preferred to have become the humble assistant of his labours, rather than to have brought forward an original measure of my own. That statute gives a power to parishes assembled in vestry to repose the general care and management of what concerns the poor in a limited number of their own body, to be called a select vestry. The obvious purpose of the provision was, to confide the trust in the most judicious and capable inhabitants, whose number should be too small to be liable to the confusion inseparable from crowded meetings, and yet sufficient to enable them to execute their duties alternately without personal inconvenience, and to press their proposals upon their fellow-parishioners with that efficient influence which is attached to numbers and to respectability of station. The act likewise gave to all places separately maintaining their own poor, the power of appointing one or more assistant overseers, with a salary. Under this provision, parishes were enabled to procure and pay (which they could not before do) a person competent to the duties of relieving and attending to the wants and condition of the poor, by a weekly, or, if necessary, by a daily superintendance. A less obvious, but not less important result, is, that it enables parishioners of a higher capacity and condition to undertake the office, when the more laborious part of the official functions may rest with their salaried assistant; while the general and more important duties of control and superintendance remain with themselves.

These measures were well calculated to bring home, as far as it is necessary, the discipline and regulation of a work-house to the pauper's cottage, stripped of its moral dangers. They have been considered as being so wisely calculated to improve the old laws, that out of the total number of districts maintaining their poor, being 14,700, no fewer than 2,006 have already chosen select vestries, and 2,257 have appointed assistant overseers. But as the law now stands, the election of the assistant overseer, the amount of his salary, and the specification of his duties, rest with the parishioners at large. The danger of the selection of this most important officer under the influence of intrigue and cabal, the obvious propriety that those who are to superintend the parish concerns should become responsible for an efficient appointment, and that those should specify the duties, the discharge of which is to operate in relief of their own gratuitous labour, seem to require some alteration in these respects. I have therefore prepared a clause to vest these powers in the select vestry, instead of the parishioners at large. It must also happen that as a populous and extended district may require more than one assistant overseer, so the time of a person fitted for the office may be only partially occupied in a small parish, and his salary be too small to recompense him for devoting himself entirely to this arduous employment as a means of livelihood. I shall therefore propose, that the same person may be appointed by two or more neighbouring parishes to this office. Undoubtedly this may be effected under the existing law; but to guard against the possibility of abuse, I propose to limit the appointment to parishes within the distance of five miles from each other, and subject to the approbation of the petty sessions, by whom all such appointments must now be formally made.

As the law now stands, select vestries are to superintend the collection and administration of the poor-rates. and the overseers are required to conform to their directions in these respects, as well as in what relates to the relief and management of the poor; but no power is given to the vestry, either to fix the amount of the assessments, or to prescribe the time at and for which such rates shall be made. This power is so obviously connected with their present duties of directing and controlling the expenditure, that I almost hazard the conjecture that the omission to give it has proceeded from mistake. I have framed a clause to supply what I regard as an obvious defect.—The present law also gives to the select vestry a power to take into its consideration the character and conduct of the person applying for relief, and to distinguish in that relief between the deserving and the idle, the extravagant, and profligate poor. This provision is, in truth, the first effectual attempt to bring us back to the original scope and spirit of the 43rd of Elizabeth. It seems to me to be in substance rather a declaration of the law than a new enactment. But I am persuaded, that in what ever light it is to be viewed in this respect, the House will feel, that the regulation is not only salutary and expepedient, but absolutely essential; for some wise and temperate distinction between the sober and industrious but unfortunate poor, and those who are idle, lazy, and dissolute, must become the very corner stone of whatever reforma- tion we meditate. The operation of the statute is now confined to the person applying for relief. I propose to extend the inquiry and regulation to all persons constituting the same family. The head of a family is, during the minority of its subordinate members, morally responsible for its education and conduct. Their common means of support are applied, and regulated by him, even where it is not altogether provided by him. It is thus impossible to disconnect in practice the effect of relief which, though nominally given to one, is actually shared by all. It seems reasonable, therefore, that these inquiries should include the entire family. I have also thought, that it may be expedient to give the same power to parish officers in general, which is now confined by the act to select vestries and justices, when making orders of relief in those particular cases which are pointed out by the statute.

If a select vestry is judiciously appointed, any foreign interference with their management of the poor will be generally mischievous, and always displeasing The 59th Geo. 3rd seems to have adopted this principle, when it made the concurrence of at least two magistrates necessary for an order of relief, made upon the ground, that what was offered by the select vestry was inadequate to the real wants of the pauper. It occurs to me, that the expediency of having all orders for relief made upon some fixed and certain rule, requires that this provision should be extended farther. I shall propose, therefore, to render the concurrence of no less than three justices necessary to such an order; and I will freely own, that I should have made that of a larger number essential, if the condition of the magistracy as to numbers in many, and more particularly in the northern and Welch counties would have admitted it.

Thus far, Sir, the provisions of the intended bill are grounded upon those of 59 Geo. 3rd. The remaining clauses, although new in their provisions, proceed upon a principle acknowledged and admitted under every construction and interpretation of 43 Eliz. It is, that the indigent pauper is bound to repay by his labour what he receives in the sustenance of himself and his family; and that he who asks for relief must submit to work. It is my design, therefore, to propose that the same power which is given to guardians and visitors by 22 Geo. 3rd shall be extended to select vestries and to parish officers; namely, that of hiring out the poor to work while they do not procure it for themselves. I propose to extend the limit within which such employment may be obtained to any distance not exceeding ten miles from the pauper's dwelling.

To carry this measure into effect, as well as those with which it is my intention to follow it up, for the purpose of urging the labour of the indigent poor into channels most likely to afford compensation to their parish, a thorough acquaintance with their state and condition, with the amount of their expenditure, and the resources for employing them, are indispensably necessary. To obtain this desirable object, I design to propose that the church-wardens and overseers of every parish shall prepare and make up two weekly lists of persons receiving parish relief: one, of the impotent poor, who are incapable of sustaining themselves by their labour; the other, of those able-bodied persons, who receive relief because the wages received for their labour are insufficient to support them and their families. Both lists are to contain the names, the ages, and the occupations of each pauper, and of their respective families, as well as the causes for relieving them. They are to be signed at the end of each week not only by one or more of the parish officers, but by the pauper, who is thereby to attest their correctness, in so far as respects his individual case. A summary of these lists is to be made up and returned quarterly to the justices at their petty sessions, at which not only the parish officers, but the surveyors of highways, and the contractors for public works, within a certain distance from each parish, are to be required to attend. Upon these highways and public works, all able-bodied persons receiving relief are to be compelled to work, at the discretion of the justices, after a full consideration of the utility of such employment, with reference to the public benefit as well as the particular interest of each parish. The wages of such labour, as also of that where paupers are hired out to private individuals, are to be paid as the parish officers shall desire; either to the pauper, or to the parish officers, to be by them applied in repayment of what may be expended for his support, and that of his wife and children, where they deem it expedient to withdraw that charge from the improvident individual, and take it upon themselves. From this employment, if judiciously applied to the most useful of public undertakings, that of making good roads, I am sanguine enough to anticipate much beneficial result; perhaps, ultimately to diminish the heavy burthens now levied on the country by the numerous turnpike trusts.

Sir, I farther propose, that a general summary of these quarterly accounts shall be laid annually before the petty sessions, and that whenever the select vestry, the parish officers, or any number of inhabitants, rated in the aggregate to the amount of 50l. shall require it, those able-bodied males, who have received three month's relief in the preceding year, for themselves or their families; and all who have attained the age of eighteen, and were supported by parish relief for three years of their minority, either as part of their parent's family or otherwise, shall be selected and included in one list; that their names shall be arranged in numerical order by the justices, upon consideration of each individual's case; and that from this list persons shall be returned to serve in the militia for the parish, without ballot, according to the order in which they stand in the list.

Of the right to call upon these persons to repay those who have fed and clothed them, by becoming militia substitutes for the parish, and thus relieving their benefactors from a heavy personal burthen, theta can be no doubt: of its expediency there will, I trust, be as little. It will ease the rated parishioner from the expense of providing substitutes which, though trifling in times of peace, is considerable in those of war. To serve in the constitutional force of the country is not degrading, and ought not to be distressing to any one, as we are all equally subject to these laws. But so far as it shall be thought a hardship, it may have a most salutary effect both fee the poor and the country. It will make those heads of families, who feel aversion to the service, either on their own account, or on that of their children, pause before they apply for parish relief. It may induce them and their employers also to pause before they give or take lower wages than the fair value of their service. It will then be no longer a question of indifference to the poor man, whether his wages are to be made up to him from the poor rates, or taken from his master's pocket. Sir, if it will have the effect of checking the practice of employing the poor as rounds-men, it will prove not less beneficial to the labouring poor than to the rated parishioner.

But, as this list is not to be made up, except when the parish by its application shown it to be necessary, so no person is to be compelled to serve without every possible precaution that he shall not be improperly called upon. Cases of sickness are to be excepted. The list is to be annually revised by the magistrates. The names of persons are to be erased, who pay back a certain portion of what they have received from the parish; and their respective places in the list may be changed by the justices, so as to retard or accelerate their being returned to serve, upon proper application and due consideration of each party's conduct and character, and his exertions for the support of his family during the preceding year.—If these lists are regularly kept, and I shall introduce such regulations and forms as appear to me best calculated to ensure their being so, a farther advantage will follow. They will lay the foundation for such accurate returns of the state and condition of the poor being regularly made to this House, as must enable it to probe the evil to the core, and by discovering where the disease lies, supply the legislature with means to devise more effectual remedies, if those which I now suggest should prove insufficient.

The only remaining measure which I intend to propose for regulating the dependant poor, is one upon which I have thought much, and consulted many experienced persons. I do not wish to conceal from the House that I have felt much repugnance to bringing it forward, and that in doing so, I sacrifice my personal feelings to a sense of duty, and the conviction that it will prove beneficial. By 8 and 9 W. 3rd c. 30, all poor persons receiving parish relief were compelled to wear badges. The indiscriminate application of a distinction which, pointed out poverty as an object of shame and reproach, was considered to be a measure of severe, if not of cruel discipline. Hence it nearly fell into desuetude, as it were, by public consent, before it was actually, repealed, by 50 Geo. 3rd c. 52. But though this mark may be harsh and oppressive to many there are some to whom the application of it will be eminently useful, and the apprehension that it can be so applied may prove not less useful to many more. There exist in most parishes a set of spongers upon the parish funds, whom nothing can entice into any exertion for themselves or their families; persons to whom a workhouse has no terrors, who dissipate their means in debauchey, and submit their children to all the miseries and privations incident to idleness and vice; upon such persons the former provisions of this bill can operate nothing. It is proposed therefore, that justices, at petty sessions, shall be empowered to compel such persons and their families to wear badges for limited periods. But recourse is not to be had to this ultimate remedy, unless upon application by the vestry, or those officers to whom the care of the poor is entrusted, and after a scrupulous examination by the justices of the facts and circumstances under which it is asked for.

Sir, the remaining provisions in the intended bill, respect the keeping and passing of parish accounts. It has been my fortune to have many such professionally laid before me; their confusion and inaccuracy are frequently so great as to defy every attempt at explanation; and although I will not say that they are made a cover for fraud and imposition, I must observe that a more secure and easy means for both could not be devised. There is no solid reason to prevent parish accounts from being kept us regularly and exactly as those of a private person; there are many and most cogent ones why they should, if possible, be kept even with more scrupulous stictness. Yet I will venture to say, that if any private gentleman had his accounts kept in the manner in which most parishes endure to have theirs kept and passed, his inevitable ruin must be the consequence, although his fortune should be ever so large. As a remedy for this enormous mischief, I propose that all parish officers shall keep a day-book and a ledger, in which they shall make their entries regularly; that at the end of every quarter they shall draw up a summary of the several heads of receipts and expenditure, with the sums due, both to and from the parish; these abstracts are to be submitted to the petty sessions quarterly, with all necessary vouchers, to be there audited and allowed. Sir, I shall endeavour to make this mode of keeping accounts as little difficult to parish officers as may be. For this purpose I shall add such forms for keeping them as appear, not only to myself, but to persons more conversant with such matters than I am, to be best calculated to unite simplicity of arrangement with necessary detail.

Serious losses and inconvenience often occur from overseers retaining more of the rates in their hands than they ought. To guard against the hazard of such fraudulent practices, it seems necessary to give a power to justices, whore they think that any overseer has retained more parish money in his hands than is necessary, to direct him to pay it over to some of his fellow officers, with whom they may consider it may be more safely entrusted. The application of public money to the receivers' private purposes, under any circumstances, is an offence not to be tolerated: wherever therefore the overseer shall not forthwith obey this order, the amount held back shall be levied by distress upon his personal property. But as the remedy is prompt for the parish security, so the protection of the individual against mistakes should not be neglected. It is therefore proposed to give him an appeal against the allowance of the accounts in petty sessions, upon his finding adequate security for repayment of what shall be finally adjudged due from him by the quarter sessions, to which he makes his ultimate appeal.

Such, sir, is the outline of those provisions which I intend to have the honour, with the House's leave, of submitting to it, in the shape of a bill. I am deeply sensible that every such measure re-requires the most minute and cautious consideration. I shall propose therefore, it the House grants me permission to bring it in, to move that it be read a first time and printed, without being carried farther during this session. The approaching recess will give time to the members, as well as to the country, to examine and scrutinize its various, and in some respects complicated, provisions. It is my ancious wish and desire that this should take place, as it is by such means alone that its adequacy for any useful public purpose can be truly judged of. If it should be found incompetent to its object, and incapable of amendment by the wisdom of this House, no man will rejoice more sincerely in its final rejection than myself.

Sir, there is one other measure connected with my plan which is not included in the intended bill. It respects that supposed excess of population to which I have already alluded. Looking, as I do, upon the population of every kingdom as the main source of its power and prosperity, I cannot admit the existence of any superabundance of our people, beyond the demand for, their labour, without great reluctance, and much more evidence than is now before the House. A surplus in some parishes and districts may exist, without the country being generally crowded. If this inconvenience should be merely local, the laws now in force, coupled with the provisions of the intended bill, will, I trust, be found sufficient to remove it. The labouring classes may now remove where they please in search of employment. If the bread of idleness is not brought inconsiderately and lavishly home to their doors by their parish, they can seek work in places where the thinness of population admits of that demand for labour which will enable them to find it. If the entire county is so over-peopled as not to admit of this remedy, the only effectual redress will be found in a well-regulated system of colonization. This was the sole resource of the ancients against that national superabundance which, in Greece and Rome, was not unusual: not to speak of those hostile swarms which constantly poured from the northern hive, at least from the commencement of the Roman republic to the fall of the empire. Even in the present times, Ireland and Scotland have drawn occasional relief from the emigration of their people as well into this country as into America. Neither has the practice been confined to ourselves. It has not been uncommon on throughout Germany, Switzerland, and other parts of the continent. I know that theorists and others have sought their remedy against this malady in restraints and regulations, and discouragements of marriage among the poor; schemes infinitely more pernicious than any evil of which they complain. Sir, I will never either conceal or disguise my abhorrence of such fancies, which I think founded upon anti-social principles, utterly subversive of morality.^* There is no legis- ^* The ancients classed marriage among the fundamentals of society and civilization. ——Fuit sapientia quondam Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis, Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis, Oppida moliri, leges incidere lingo: Sic honos et nomen divinis vatibus atque Carminibus venit. HORACE. lative instrument by which we can expel nature beyond its power of recurrence. We may defile and desecrate that institution which Heaven has consecrated—we may remove the influence of moral restraint over the most powerful of human passions, but we cannot subdue it. Marriage in humble life is the parent of sobriety, of industry, of social affection, and of every domestic virtue which cheers and tranquillizes the poor man's cottage, both in the morn and in the decline of his frail existence. Never, no never, will I lend my assistance, with any view or for any purpose, however plausible, to tamper with an union, founded in the laws of nature, destined to yield happiness with innocence to youth, and to supply old age with the consolations of society and reciprocal support.

Any system for colonization to be effectual, must obtain the assent and concurrence of his majesty's government. For this reason I have deferred to embody my notions on that subject in the shape of a bill during the present session. It ought properly to follow as a consequence upon the adoption of those reforms which I now propose to introduce. If such a plan is ever taken up, I would found it upon two essentially governing principles. First, that it be not made the instrument of fraudulent or involuntary eviction even of the poorest and most insignificant individual from his native country. Ample precaution should be taken, that all who avail themselves of the measure, should do so solely from the impulse of voluntary choice. The other would be, that those places which are pressed by the inconvenience should raise from their local funds the necessary means for enabling the poor to emigrate. This would form the most effectual guard against injudiciously pushing the practice beyond the evils which the measure is designed to remedy. No parish or place would incur the expense, unless compelled to it by an injurious superabundance of population; and no inhabitant would be aided to remove, unless when the inconvenience of over numbers was practically felt.

That this measure may, at least for the present, be dispensed with in this part of the empire. I confidently hope and expect. Whether it may not be more immediately required in Ireland, as the only means of providing permanent succour for the poor, and insuring civil tranquil- lity to that country, is a question of a very different aspect. But whenever, or under whatsoever circumstances, we may be thus compelled to separate from our fellow subjects, we shall, I trust, sustain ourselves by the consolation, that they will carry with them British hearts, British principles, and British freedom; that they go to provinces won by the valour of their countrymen, or discovered by their nautical research, to become the means, I trust the auspicious means, of extending the language, the arts, the sciences of England, to remoter regions, and of transmitting them to future ages; laying in the firm foundations of their own immediate prosperity new and extended sources of increase for her commerce, her manufactures, and all her industrious monuments of civil and peaceful preeminence.

Many subject connected with the regulation and support of the poor remain untouched by the provisions which I have thus detailed to the House. I shall, with your leave, Sir, shortly refer to the grounds upon which I have kept them distinct. The mode of imposing the poor's rate has occupied much of public discussion. It is wished, and not unnaturally wished, to cast some of that burthen, which is now almost exclusively sustained by the landed proprietor, upon the commercial and funded interests. Any local appropriation of a tax upon the funds among the 14,700 local establishments which now maintain their poor separately, would be unattainable in practice. We must either abandon the long and wise usage of sustaining the poor by small districts, or give up this attempt. To consolidate the poor-rates of the country into one national, or even into separate country funds, might obviate the objection; but such general establishments would give birth to others more numerous, and not less insurmountable. The very essence of this relief is founded on the peculiar circumstances of want or calamity, which give to each individual his temporary or permanent claim for assistance.

The skill to apportion succour, with reference to the real wants of pauperism, to be efficient, must be local and personal; to be accurate, it must be minute and perpetual; to be vigilant, it must be quickened and animated by some direct and visible interest. All frugal care would be lost in the indiscriminating distribution of a national or a county fund. The struggle between parishes and paupers would rather be, to appropriate more than was their fair due of a common spoil, than to husband the produce of a general contribution. As these consequences demonstrate that such a plan would be either impracticable or ruinous, it is unnecessary to consider its effects and bearings upon another most important question; namely, the national faith; as it stands pledged to the public creditor.

The rateability of commercial and other personal property is now fully established; but general experience has induced the country, as it were by common consent, to abstain from the exercise of a power with which every parish is clearly and completely invested. The answer to any attempt to render personal property, if possible, more liable to assessment is, that the law has already done all that it can do, consistent with the principles of sound and rational legislation. To the abominable means of an inquisitorial scrutiny from each individual of his actual ability, the law of England will, I trust, never resort. What national experience relinquishes as unattainable after long unsuccessful experiment, it is seldom, if ever, safe to revive.

I had once thought that the effect might be indirectly obtained, by making all who are engaged in trade contribute a small sum per head for each person whom they employed; the amount to be applied in relief or other assistance of the individual on whose account it was contributed as occasion required. This would be in effect to form a kind of parochial compulsory saving-banks. But I was induced to relinquish this scheme, in the feeling that it must ultimately resolve itself into a tax upon labour; that it must in the end fall on the servant, although originally advanced by his employer; and thus compel the labourer at all times, and under all circumstances, to an equal contribution from his earnings, without reference to their amount, or his immediate capability. A farther important obstacle to the execution of such a plan is, that, to be effectual, it would require more complexity than seems convenient for any general national compulsory arrangement.

Another subject of usual complaint is, the existing law of settlement. So far as that system causes an undue increase of the poor-rates, it must do so either as an injudicious or as an expensive mode of administering relief. Upon the propriety of continuing to relieve the settled poor by parishes or their subordinate districts, I have already laid my sentiments before the House. With respect to the trouble and expense of parish litigation, the topic is so popular, that it becomes scarcely prudent to hazard a doubt upon it; and yet, Sir, if the maintenance of the poor by small districts is desirable, the expense of law-suits and removals seems to some extent unavoidable. Variety of discordant interests must give rise to intricate and subtle questions of both fact and law; they may sometimes perplex the justices in sessions, and occupy their time, at no small expense to parishes; yet, after every possible reflection upon its consequences, and every allowance for the enormous expense, the law will be found, in this instance, as in all others, the only sure resource against fraud, injustice, and oppression. That the costs of removals and law-suits have been magnified beyond the reality, appears, Sir, by the reports on your table. They do not exceed in amount one twenty-fifth part of the total of what is raised for the exclusive use of the poor; an expense at which, I believe, few gentlemen can collect and manage their private incomes. I am bound to add, and I appeal to the experience of all who hear me to corroborate the assertion, that a fair and economical expenditure is generally secured by the employment of professional men, who rank, in point of integrity and respectability, with those of any profession whatever.

Sir, these, I trust not ill-founded, apologies, are neither intended to conceal nor to do away with any fair ground of objection to particular heads of settlement law, as they may affect either the reciprocal interests of parishes, or the comfort and condition of the poor. One, the utility of which seems peculiarly questionable, is that of settlement by hiring and service, which not only gives rise to the most numerous and complicated questions of law and fact, but to a relative inequality of burthensome effect between different parishes; as it is evaded by the course of hiring in some counties, while it is scrupulously adopted in others.

The settlement and binding out of apprentices more pre-eminently require our anxious consideration. The object of the statutes of apprenticeship was, to secure to the young and unprotected a useful and virtuous course of instruction, which might qualify them for the usual avocations of domestic life. Upon the indiscriminating haste with which they are now huddled in droves and flocks from the workhouse nursery to the manufactory, I shall trust myself with no other observation than that such practices are cruel and mischievous evasions of the wise and wholesome provisions of the law. In the turning a wheel, the opening of a valve, or the feeding of a spindle, the child meets with painful occupation, and is defrauded of its fair recompense in useful information. By such early employment the body is unfitted for the efforts of ruder labour, without either mind or body being trained up and adapted to the skill which is necessary for the usual sedentary employments of mechanical callings. Fortunate, most fortunate, will these early victims be, if they can count in their catalogue of ignorance and omission, that of remaining uninitiated in early vice and immature corruption!—But, Sir, the evils are not confined to the consequences of such injudicious bindings: while the apprenticeship continues, the child shares at least some portion of a master's care, secured to him by the protection of humane and salutary statutes. But as the law of settlement now is, a male or female infant is settled by a residence for forty days under its indenture, though executed at the most childish age at which it may please the parish or their parents to bind them. Although the master or mistress should die, or become bankrupt, or disappear the very next after this fortieth day, the child is to remain estranged from the fostering care and moral protection of its parents during the continuance of its natural and necessary pupilage. Yet even here, where the mischiefs are so manifest, I am not without apprehensions that it will be found not altogether easy to devise remedies free from solid objection.

The existing right of removing the poor to their place of settlement has been objected to, both in and out of this House, upon more serious grounds than that of expense: it has been declaimed against as harsh, impolitic, and cruel; as an oppressive encroachment upon the poor man's liberty; and as injurious to the industry and general interests of the country.—Sir, our ancestors entertained very different notions upon this subject from those of their more bold and inno- vating progeny. As far as our institutions can be traced backwards, the great body of the people were restrained to continue in their settled dwellings under certain defined regulations. To this extent a law of settlement has existed, and been rigorously observed from the most remote periods of our law, as a measure of wise and necessary police.—In the existing law I must profess my inability to discover any injurious or impolitic restraint; every person enjoys under it full liberty to remove where he pleases in search of work, and to continue there at his free will and pleasure, unless he becomes chargeable to the place thus selected for a new abode. That he shall not be tempted to wander, not suffered to continue without some reasonable prospect of obtaining work, is surely a wise and constitutional limit, not less useful for the poor man's comfort, than salutary for the public peace. By manful struggles against difficulties, both rich and poor are enabled to overcome them. Our changeable natures want no such temptations to lure us rather to fly from misfortunes than to wrestle with them.—But I will leave it to any reasonable mind to calculate the innumerable evils which would result, in the present general facility of intercourse and conveyance, from not only suffering, but enticing every labouring man to run from his family, his connexions, and the responsibility of his personal character, under the legal assurance that wherever he chose to ramble he would be certain of sufficient support and a comfortable asylum.

In this, as in many other instances, our reason is seduced from its more correct conclusions by some humane sympathy and compassion for particular cases. It is undoubtedly a great hardship that an industrious family should be removed from their accustomed dwelling and their usual course of employment, because they become accidentally chargeable through some occasional cause. But Providence, which looks primarily to the species, causes the antidote to arise from the very evil of which it allows; it renders the labourer and the artisan more cautious, more frugal, and more saving, that they may avert such a serious calamity from themselves and their children. Left to himself and to his own exertions, the poor man will do more for himself, and without injury to others, than any law can do for him. In the few cases in which he may prove unable to extricate himself, private liberality ought to assist; and it would cheerfully do so, unless it were kept back by the feeling that an application to the poor's rate renders such interference unnecessary and almost intrusive.

Sir, upon these grounds it seems to me that the object of our law should be the direct reverse of what is here and in some other instances contended for; and that sound policy requires, that if any alteration is made, it should be rather to render removals even more easy, and the acquisition of settlements more difficult. Sir, the report of your committee goes strongly to support this opinion:

"It is uniformly found, that such inhabitants of a parish as have not acquired a settlement in it, and can obtain no such relief without being removed, are distinguished by their activity and industry, and generally possess, not only the necessaries, but the comforts of life; and your committee have lately heard with satisfaction, that the operation of the act of this session has already relieved some parishes of the metropolis from the heavy burthen of maintaining numbers of persons without settlements in England, who are stated now to support themselves, instead of applying for parochial relief, under the apprehension of being sent home.^*

It is farther most remarkable, that this principle has been uniformly followed without being openly avowed. For every proposed alteration in this branch of the law has terminated either in abolishing some modes of acquiring settlements, or in rendering other less easy to be gained; so that, whatever may have been suggested, and however recommended, no more easy and simple mode of settling the poor has hitherto been sanctioned by the legislature.

One mitigation of the law of removals I have ventured to introduce, but which it escaped my recollection to notice in its proper place. Parishes often afford relief to their settled poor while residing elsewhere, upon principles of humanity, and obviously mutual advantage. My object is to render this practice legal to a limited extent, under certain guards and cautions; the principal one is, that such relief should only be given with the vestry's consent. ^* Report from the Committee on the Poor Laws, 1819. I trust this House will not think it unreasonable that those who are to bear the expense should possess the right of controlling it.

Experience of what has followed from the attempts of others, has rendered me apprehensive of the unforeseen consequences of all untried measures upon this subject; I will therefore frankly avow, that I introduce even such an innovation upon the law with doubt and reluctance. But as the sense and feelings of the country have anticipated the measure, and given it the sanction of usage, which has not been followed by any perceptible inconvenience, I am encouraged to hope, that in the greater extent to which it may be carried by being rendered legal, it will prove harmless in its remoter consequences, and useful in its immediate effects.

The only remaining branch of this law to which it seems necessary to refer, is that which respects illegitimate children: it is intimately and most seriously connected with the subject of parish expenditure; but for reasons with which it is unnecessary to fatigue the House at this time, it has hitherto been made the object of distinct legislative provisions. The present laws require much attentive consideration, both as they affect the morals and the general economy of the poor. I have thus briefly touched upon this subject, in the hope of calling some member's attention towards it who may have time and talents for the undertaking.

I cannot conceal from myself that this plan, of which the House has now heard the detail with such kind indulgence, may be liable to many objections, both as it respects the means by which it is to work, and the results it is designed to produce. Like all laws of common daily application, as every man feels it, so every man will judge of it; and applaud or condemn, rather as it removes or disregards the inconvenience by which he practically suffers, than as it is calculated to answer the great national purpose which it labours to accomplish. But as there is no end of local objections, or suggestions for improvement, so they admit not of any answer.

Against the difficulties which it may be supposed to cast upon overseers, particularly by multiplying the number and increasing the complexity of their accounts, I trust a sufficient remedy is provided in the aid of an assistant overseer, whose labours, if he is rightly chosen, will amply repay whatever salary he may receive.^*

It may also be urged, that it imposes fresh duties and additional responsibilities upon the local magistracy of the kingdom: I trust it will produce no such inconvenience. The regular arrangement of parish affairs, and the due ordering the real poor, which the bill aims at effecting, seem better calculated to lighten than to increase their official labours. But even if it should prove otherwise, I am persuaded that this invaluable body of men will be the last to complain. If benefits may accrue not only to themselves but to their country, and not only to the present but to future generations, they will spare neither pains nor labour to bring them within the reach of the people.

It will possibly be objected, that the plan is better adapted to regulate the agricultural poor, than those of large towns and considerable manufacturing districts. As far as the objection arises from an application of the pauper's labour to highways and public works, it has some foundation. But the nicer employments of the manufacturer or artizan do not admit of this appropriation to public purposes: it is only the ruder and coarser kinds of labour that allow of such general regulation. On the other hand, as the manufacturer's wages are commonly higher, the power of apportioning relief, with reference to the pauper's industry, yields more than a counterbalancing advantage to manufacturing towns and districts: and as the means of saving are usually greater in such places, recourse to the parish rates will be less necessary, more especially if a prudent use is made of the wise institutions of saving banks.

There is another objection which I am not a little anxious to repel. I may be accused of bringing forward regulations, which press with additional heaviness and severity upon the poor; as they tend to curtail the extent of relief, while they render the poor man's return for it more laborious and irksome. Sir, in throwing the imputation from me, I will say, that nothing can be more remote from my intention. My object, and it is one to me above price, is, to promote their comfort, to preserve their true spirit of independence, to cherish their domestic virtues, to chase away every lure to laziness and thoughtless dissipation. In this heavy, ^* Forms for keeping the accounts will be subjoined in an appendix to the bill. and perhaps ungrateful, task, it is necessary to winnow the chaff from the corn; to separate the idle from the industrious; to distinguish, by a clear line of demarcation, the prudent from the spendthrift; the moral from the profligate.

Sir, he is no true friend to his kind who would keep them, as far as possible, unemployed. We may look to Ireland for the practical evils resulting from such a listless mischievous economy. The bread of labour is the bread of peace. When Providence made the sweat of man's brow the condition of his inheritance, alleviated the dispensation by soothing the ways of industry with that content and happiness, which to idleness and vice must remain for ever strangers.

I mistake altogether both the provisions and the object of this bill, if it imposes injurious hardships, or severe discipline, on one. It professes no specific for sudden or violent amelioration. It holds out no prospects of unattainable advantage. Its object is, to follow in the paths of our predecessors, and by so doing to respect the feelings, the habits, the manners, the comforts, and the prejudices of the people. It is brought forward in the time of general peace, and in the season of domestic abundance, when the experiment, if it is to be ever hazarded, may be attempted with safety and a reasonable prospect of success.

Sir, I am fully, aware that neither this nor any other measure can effect more than to devise means, and afford facilities, by which the country may extricate itself from this growing and monstrous evil. As this is the utmost which the legislature can accomplish, it is all that it should attempt; beyond this the nation must minister unto itself. It is upon the active perseverance and vigilant superintendence of the magistrates; upon the unremitting, unwearied, paternal attention of the landed and manufacturing interests; upon the persuasion, influence, and example of those who spare from their own wants, that which is to lighten those of others; and upon the cordial, cheerful co-operation of the poor themselves, that we must rely for any sound, substantial, and lasting improvement. Let us then earnestly call upon them all, both individually and collectively, to unite in one common effort to rescue themselves and their posterity from this calamitous pressure, and thus, rid their country of an incumbrance which clogs so heavily its prosperity and vigour. —The hon. and learned gentleman concluded with moving. "That leave be given to bring in a bill to amend the Poor Laws."

The Marquis of Londonderry

thought it would be most advisable to allow the bill to be brought in and read a first time, without entering into that kind of desultory discussion, the tendency of which would be, not to advance, but retard the object in view. He congratuluted his hon. and learned friend on the great pains be had taken upon this subject, and expressed his satisfaction at finding that his object was to bring back the system to what it was originally intended to be, instead of misleading the public mind, by any attempt to remove that which had grown up and strengthened with the institutions of the country.

Leave was given to bring in the bill.